Greetings, family and friends and faithful blog followers!!
Welcome to my new blog! I packed up my life once again into two bags, said all the necessary goodbyes, and at 11:30am on Sunday officially closed the chapter in my life called “Benin”. It was hard to say goodbye to my village the week before that, but after arriving in Cotonou and spending a week jumping through administrative hoops, I was more than ready to close that chapter and move on. I love Benin, it will always hold a very special place in my heart, I am a much stronger person now than I ever was and will be forever grateful for the opportunities I received through my Peace Corps service and the people I met and worked with.
BUT, as someone said all good things come to an end (which incidentally I don’t believe is true but that is another post for another day) and this exciting new chapter has opened, entitled “The Africa Mercy – Sierra Leone!”
Getting here was a bit of an adventure. I was a bit concerned about customs and the airport in Cotonou, technically airline employees aren’t supposed to allow you to board without a visa for the country you are going to, but Africa Mercy volunteers get visa exemptions. I had all the necessary paperwork, but was flying Asky airlines which is a regional west African airline. I can imagine that Air France, and Brussels Air, the airlines most used by Mercy crew, are used to the visa exemptions, but I can’t imagine that many crew come in on Asky airlines! But, I need not have worried. They didn’t even ask for the paperwork or barely glance at my passport. I was over my baggage allowance by 10kg, which wasn’t surprising either, and it only cost me 20.000cfa (about $40) which I still happened to have in cash. I knew I had a stop in Togo to change planes, but didn’t realize that flight would then stop in Accra, Ghana, and Monrovia, Liberia before arriving in Freetown, Sierra Leone! Five countries in about as many hours. The flight from Cotonou to Lome was only twenty minutes, and to Accra was about the same. From Accra to Monrovia was about two hours and we got served a lovely chicken meal. I thought for sure with all those stops I would get in to Freetown late, but it couldn’t have gone more smoothly! And the planes were relatively new and comfortable, I have only good things to say about Asky airlines if you ever find yourself needing to travel within West Africa!
Anyway, when I finally arrived there was someone from Mercy waiting to greet me and push me through customs, I’ve never had such an easy process. Then I got to wait about an hour at the airport for two more people coming in in a British Airlines flight from London. Once we collected the three of us we were driven to the Ferry dock where we waited for over an hour. The airport is not actually in Freetown but in a town across a huge inlet of ocean water that took about an hour to ferry across. I dozed on the ferry, by that time it was nearing midnight Benin time (Sierra Leone is one hour closer to the States, UTC or GMT+0 if you were wondering!) Once the ferry arrived on the other side, Charles and Shelly were there to greet me! They are the family I visited here on the Mercy in May of 2010 and it was so wonderful to see their familiar faces again!
Once we got to the ship we had a very short safety briefing, and a hot dinner was served to us. Heavenly. I had gotten a second wind of energy, I was so excited to have finally arrived! It’s been in the plans for a long time!! I forgot how ginormous the ship is, too – it is HUGE! I do suppose the longer I am here the smaller it may feel. We’ll see.
Anyway, finally Shelly brought me to my room. I’m on deck 4, no windows, in a room the size of your average American living room with 8 beds (4 bunk beds), two small bathrooms with showers, a kitchen-type sink, small refrigerator and microwave– its tight! I’m glad I got rid of just about everything and only brought one bag of stuff!! But the mattress was super comfortable and the room (and the ship) is well air-conditioned so I am thankful.
Monday I spent the morning finding my way around the ship, getting my crew bank account set up and crew fees paid. I drank a ton of amazingly delicious coffee and saw many people I had met on my visit last year. Monday afternoon I had my official work orientation (I work in the dining room and galley (kitchen)). Then I had my official ship tour, dinner, and safety and security orientation. I was exhausted and went to bed early but was really glad I had the day to orient myself to this new life!
Yesterday was my first day in the Dining room. Work starts at 5:45am, we get a two hour break mid-morning and a two hour break mid-afternoon, and end about 8pm. Basically I set up the dining room and then clean it up after the meals, which are served buffet style to around 500-600 people a day. There will be days I will end up working in the galley, helping prepare meals, but for now it’s just dining room. It’s really great – I’ve worked in many camp kitchens so industrial prep is not new to me. I was explaining to some of my teammates that it was really nice to just be told what to do for awhile, too. After being so independent and self-reliant for work for so long, it was really great to just wash dishes for a few hours and see the results of my labor immediately. I’ll probably dive deeper into this in another post. But for now, suffice it to say I was thrilled to find out I was in the dining room and think it’ll be a great place to serve during this season.
I’m consistently amazed at all the awesome people I have met and get to work with. My immediate supervisor is from Ghana and has been with Mercy for 8 years. I work closely with people from America, Canada, the UK, Holland, Korea, and Australia. I’ve met people from Germany, Cameroon, Benin, Switzerland, Togo, South Africa, and have heard at least a dozen different languages spoken. One of my teammates in the dining room is from Togo so we were speaking French most of yesterday.
Today I am not working so I did some laundry, in laundry machines, not by hand. It was beautiful and my clothes came out CLEAN and DRY! Amazing. I’ve put up some pictures around my bed and finished up my needed paperwork. It’s a good day!
I promise to take some pictures in the next couple of days and get them posted. Anyway, this post is getting really long so I’ll cut it off here for now. Please send me an email and tell me how you are doing! Love to all. K
Welcome to my new blog! I packed up my life once again into two bags, said all the necessary goodbyes, and at 11:30am on Sunday officially closed the chapter in my life called “Benin”. It was hard to say goodbye to my village the week before that, but after arriving in Cotonou and spending a week jumping through administrative hoops, I was more than ready to close that chapter and move on. I love Benin, it will always hold a very special place in my heart, I am a much stronger person now than I ever was and will be forever grateful for the opportunities I received through my Peace Corps service and the people I met and worked with.
BUT, as someone said all good things come to an end (which incidentally I don’t believe is true but that is another post for another day) and this exciting new chapter has opened, entitled “The Africa Mercy – Sierra Leone!”
Getting here was a bit of an adventure. I was a bit concerned about customs and the airport in Cotonou, technically airline employees aren’t supposed to allow you to board without a visa for the country you are going to, but Africa Mercy volunteers get visa exemptions. I had all the necessary paperwork, but was flying Asky airlines which is a regional west African airline. I can imagine that Air France, and Brussels Air, the airlines most used by Mercy crew, are used to the visa exemptions, but I can’t imagine that many crew come in on Asky airlines! But, I need not have worried. They didn’t even ask for the paperwork or barely glance at my passport. I was over my baggage allowance by 10kg, which wasn’t surprising either, and it only cost me 20.000cfa (about $40) which I still happened to have in cash. I knew I had a stop in Togo to change planes, but didn’t realize that flight would then stop in Accra, Ghana, and Monrovia, Liberia before arriving in Freetown, Sierra Leone! Five countries in about as many hours. The flight from Cotonou to Lome was only twenty minutes, and to Accra was about the same. From Accra to Monrovia was about two hours and we got served a lovely chicken meal. I thought for sure with all those stops I would get in to Freetown late, but it couldn’t have gone more smoothly! And the planes were relatively new and comfortable, I have only good things to say about Asky airlines if you ever find yourself needing to travel within West Africa!
Anyway, when I finally arrived there was someone from Mercy waiting to greet me and push me through customs, I’ve never had such an easy process. Then I got to wait about an hour at the airport for two more people coming in in a British Airlines flight from London. Once we collected the three of us we were driven to the Ferry dock where we waited for over an hour. The airport is not actually in Freetown but in a town across a huge inlet of ocean water that took about an hour to ferry across. I dozed on the ferry, by that time it was nearing midnight Benin time (Sierra Leone is one hour closer to the States, UTC or GMT+0 if you were wondering!) Once the ferry arrived on the other side, Charles and Shelly were there to greet me! They are the family I visited here on the Mercy in May of 2010 and it was so wonderful to see their familiar faces again!
Once we got to the ship we had a very short safety briefing, and a hot dinner was served to us. Heavenly. I had gotten a second wind of energy, I was so excited to have finally arrived! It’s been in the plans for a long time!! I forgot how ginormous the ship is, too – it is HUGE! I do suppose the longer I am here the smaller it may feel. We’ll see.
Anyway, finally Shelly brought me to my room. I’m on deck 4, no windows, in a room the size of your average American living room with 8 beds (4 bunk beds), two small bathrooms with showers, a kitchen-type sink, small refrigerator and microwave– its tight! I’m glad I got rid of just about everything and only brought one bag of stuff!! But the mattress was super comfortable and the room (and the ship) is well air-conditioned so I am thankful.
Monday I spent the morning finding my way around the ship, getting my crew bank account set up and crew fees paid. I drank a ton of amazingly delicious coffee and saw many people I had met on my visit last year. Monday afternoon I had my official work orientation (I work in the dining room and galley (kitchen)). Then I had my official ship tour, dinner, and safety and security orientation. I was exhausted and went to bed early but was really glad I had the day to orient myself to this new life!
Yesterday was my first day in the Dining room. Work starts at 5:45am, we get a two hour break mid-morning and a two hour break mid-afternoon, and end about 8pm. Basically I set up the dining room and then clean it up after the meals, which are served buffet style to around 500-600 people a day. There will be days I will end up working in the galley, helping prepare meals, but for now it’s just dining room. It’s really great – I’ve worked in many camp kitchens so industrial prep is not new to me. I was explaining to some of my teammates that it was really nice to just be told what to do for awhile, too. After being so independent and self-reliant for work for so long, it was really great to just wash dishes for a few hours and see the results of my labor immediately. I’ll probably dive deeper into this in another post. But for now, suffice it to say I was thrilled to find out I was in the dining room and think it’ll be a great place to serve during this season.
I’m consistently amazed at all the awesome people I have met and get to work with. My immediate supervisor is from Ghana and has been with Mercy for 8 years. I work closely with people from America, Canada, the UK, Holland, Korea, and Australia. I’ve met people from Germany, Cameroon, Benin, Switzerland, Togo, South Africa, and have heard at least a dozen different languages spoken. One of my teammates in the dining room is from Togo so we were speaking French most of yesterday.
Today I am not working so I did some laundry, in laundry machines, not by hand. It was beautiful and my clothes came out CLEAN and DRY! Amazing. I’ve put up some pictures around my bed and finished up my needed paperwork. It’s a good day!
I promise to take some pictures in the next couple of days and get them posted. Anyway, this post is getting really long so I’ll cut it off here for now. Please send me an email and tell me how you are doing! Love to all. K
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